Blood
by Landon88
Summary: Caught in an invasion, Seth starts a guerilla war on the occupying force after he loses everything he once loved. Alone, only with his cunning and his wits to aid him.


He could barely breathe. The rasping sound as Leo tried to draw in air managed to drown out the sound of his feet hitting the cement. Holding his chest he sprinted through the grounds of the school, windows smashed and doors blown ajar. He looked down at his hand, blood smeared all over his fingers and his palm. The hole had gotten bigger. The pulsating pain was worsening the longer he ran, but his attackers weren't going to give up the hunt that easily. Even for a solid guy, when it comes to guns, unlike other things in a male's ego, size doesn't matter. He was 30 feet from the entrance and had a new group of soldiers to his left, adrenaline hit his system, the blood pounded in his ears. He looked towards the building in front of him, at least in this decaying school he could hide. The old corridors, classrooms and storage rooms made a web of catacombs in which to lose any pursuers, and occasionally yourself.

Leo started to run harder, pushing every bit of his endurance to make those last final metres. His feet fell hard against the grass and his head was starting to swim from the exertion. Each footfall made a sharp pain lance through his head but nothing could stop him, he had to live. He came within arms reach of safety, so close he could taste the rest it would bring, when a single shot rang out behind him. His vision began to swirl, and an extreme feeling of vertigo overcame his mind. The last thing he saw was soldiers firing their rifles, but not at him. There were maybe half of them left still standing and uninjured. They were hammering the building he was trying to reach. Darkness consumed his vision.

Seth almost tripped over his own feet as he rounded a corner to ascend a ramp; the stumble probably saved his life. As he fell a loud 'whoosh' consumed his senses, and as he looked up, saw the shell of a TYPE 2004, Chinese made, Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) fly just inches above his head. He felt the rush of wind blow past his scalp and whiplashed his head into the concrete.

"You gotta be kidding me! You missed; god damn needle dick motherfucker!" Seth screamed into the blackness of the night. Under his breath he said to himself "An RPG just for me, they must be pissed! I didn't think they'd miss those trucks THAT much. Damn, I'm getting too old for this shit!"

In truth Seth was only 21, but to him the war had lasted decades not years. He'd changed from when this all began, not only did he develop a temper which could rival the ancient Titans of Greek mythology, but he'd noticed that the longer he fought, the more his rage consumed him, that blind hatred that made him pursue even the most wounded enemy until he saw the life leave his eyes as his hands closed around his throat. He'd lost his sense of compassion, empathy and mercy the day he had his world turned to ash. Everything he knew was taken slowly and cruelly; his family suffered the worst. The screams still wake him at night. All at once the images raced through his mind, he wept hot tears of rage and an inexorable sense of dread and doom overcame him, like everything he was fighting for was a joke and that ultimately he would die and everything and anything he did would have been for nothing. It felt like someone had contained the ocean and dropped it right on his chest.

"Come on, move! Don't be weak, MOVE!" Seth screamed at himself focusing on his rage.

This wasn't the first time he had experienced these feelings, each time he pushed the feeling to the back of his mind and focused on his anger, the rage that fuelled his guerrilla campaign and his very existence, his rage was his greatest weapon. He sprinted up the ramp and swung his rifle around from his back. He gave a cruel chuckle, a .22 against soldiers with automatic weapons, "yeah great odds mate!"

He was just at the door of the complex when an earthquake rocked the foundations of his platform and behind him a wave of heat washed over his body, throwing him forward into the hallway. He shook off the pain and disorientation, got to his feet and blindly kept running.

"Oh my god, this is ridiculous! What happened to the good old days of guns and grenades, now I'm stuck playing cat and mouse with a fucking rocket launcher!"

Seth stopped and listened, his blood was pumping hard, he could almost hear each beat of his heart as the blood tried to explode from his ears. Yet besides his own bodily functions, he heard nothing. He could only assume because they couldn't see or hear him any more they must have started a search or were moving onto the next area. One common behaviour Seth had noticed is they were always careful around intact buildings, the only conclusion he could come to is that they were planning to colonise the areas they swept clear. Though from experience he never saw them do a good job of maintaining any of them. Their use of HE rockets was starting to disprove his theory.

He found a room which faced out to the quadrangle he had just come from and had a small chunk missing out of the wall, just large enough to poke a muzzle out of, Seth went 'prone', a firing position in which the soldier lays down flat, supporting the rifle with both arms and elbows. This firing position is the position most likely to allow the firer to effectively hit and/or kill his target while also providing the most camouflage and protection. He watched as the soldiers swept across the quadrangle, walking casually as if they were on a normal patrol. Seth could only assume they were so confident that they had scared, injured or killed him with those rockets, that they were no longer worried about a counter attack.

"Perfect" Seth whispered. He liked stupidity; it was the flaw in an enemy most profitable to him.

Seth lined up a target, adjusted the scope to factor in the distance, and aimed at the centre of mass of the furthest target. He flicked off the safety, held his breath and applied the slightest pressure to the trigger. He hesitated; across the rectangle he saw a young man, running as hard as he could. He was holding his chest; Seth could hear him wheezing from across the quad. One of the soldiers laughed and levelled his rifle at him. He said something in his native tongue to which the other soldiers broke out laughing, treating the young man like a piece of entertainment. He slowly squeezed the trigger, a round exploded from the chamber, spiralling its way to inflict damage on the soft tissue of whichever poor soul got in its road. The round connected with the young man and blew a chunk out of his shoulder, just near the neck, onto the grass. The young man stumbled and fell forward face first. He looked around him for only a second, and then collapsed. Seth, for the first time in years, felt angry because of someone else's suffering. They killed him for sport, such an obtuse way to die, bereft of honour or dignity.

Seth felt a cold chill run over his body, he lined up the shooter and felt a small kick from his rifle, a 'snap' filled his ears and the soldier fell screaming as the bullet impacted on his knee cap, breaking it backward with a tremendous 'crack'. The other soldiers were confused for a second, looking frantically around them. Some ran to the man on the ground, others scanned the buildings with their rifles or aimed at the bloodied boy they had just shot. Seth loved his rifle; it was a gift from his late wife's father. Unlike rifles with a large calibre which made a loud, noticeable 'crack', his rifle made a more subtle 'snap' each time it fired, hardly discernable from a stone hitting cement. He had placed the scope on himself to assist with difficult shots and scavenged a 20 round magazine from one of the local hunting and sporting shops. It required a great amount of skill to use, as the rounds were small by any comparison. To effectively injure or kill your target you had to hit vital points; head, neck, elbows and knees, otherwise the rounds had the chance of bouncing off body armour, personal effects or causing only minor flesh wounds.

Seth targeted one of the men ready with his rifle, squeezed off two shots and scored one hit straight through the mans neck, cutting his spinal cord as it created its exit wound. The second round went to the right of him, by just inches. Seth had never intended for that round to hit him, instead it collided with a pole and created a loud 'clang' throughout the quad. Instinctively the soldiers spun to sound of the noise, aiming wildly at whatever they thought was moving. He could see through his scope they were scared. They were sweating, shaking and some were muttering to themselves. "Become a ghost in the mind of your enemy". Seth had lived by this ideology every time he was in combat and it had never failed. Though, to his disadvantage, the enemy were now under the impression that rockets could kill ghosts.

Seth saw what was firing the heavy ordnance at him as he was entering the school. A short, scrawny man was standing at the rear of the squad. On a tripod mount was the launcher, each shell had to be at least 100mm. He had felt something earlier, when he'd been hit in the back by the explosion, something which wasn't stock standard Chinese artillery. He'd felt a shockwave which tingled his skin and made his hair stand on end. He guessed an EMP, which seemed like a long shot but it made sense, if they were using these rockets as anti-vehicle weapons, an EMP would take out any electronics in surrounding vehicles and disable things like radios, GPS and internal computer systems. Using them against Seth would knock out any electronics he was carrying. Smart, as they were assuming nothing when it came to killing him. He could be using auto-targeting systems, GPS, laser designators and even something as small as a portable radio.

These troops were getting better equipped than when his war first started. 'His war', Seth thought about that for a moment. He wasn't fighting them out of patriotism, or a deluded sense of personal honour. He was just killing them, wherever he found them. Wherever they massed he would wipe them away, like a stain on his existence. He had made it his war. Once they lost him initially they would never pursue him outside of the towns, he found them, and he relished in the fear of his enemy. One man against an army, viewed inherently as a wraith. A malevolent spirit, come to punish them for their sins. He couldn't help but smile, they had sinned and he was more than happy to become their wraith.

Seth snapped out of his trance, daydreaming never had dropped off his list of bad habits. He looked out onto the field and took in the panic of his victims. The muzzle of the launcher started to turn to his section of the building, his adrenaline spiked. They couldn't know if he was there, but at this point they mustn't have cared. Seth shot two rounds, one a second after the other. One round smashed into the back of one mans head and another hit the soft triceps of the man just next to him. The round punched all the way through to the bicep in front of it and stayed lodged in the muscle. He fired again, hitting the man at the launcher square in the forehead. The exit wound blew gore all over a nearby wall, bits of bone and brain matter slid down its surface

All the soldiers spun once again and started hammering the building with everything they had. None of them knew where Seth was, but eventually they had to get lucky. Seth rolled to the side, narrowly missing the wave of bullets that came pouring through his opening. He noticed he was breathing heavily, Winston Churchill had once said "There is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at without result!" At this point Seth agreed. He got to his feet, ran to the door and checked both ways before exiting the room. He went deeper into the complex, found a well shadowed room, and waited. They would have to come into the building to find him. The sound of explosions thudded through the building, disturbing the dust that had laid still for years. Seth could feel each explosion in his chest, as the sound reverberated off his ribs. They'd eventually have to come this way to find him, he picked a spot which all corridors connected to, and had numerous rooms and storage containers lining its walls. Seth heard voices coming from the east. He hugged the darkness like a blanket, and grabbed the handle of his sword, wrapped in soft cloth in the ancient Japanese fashion, not to draw it, but more for confidence.

"Become a ghost in the mind of your enemy" Seth whispered. He was ready.


End file.
